As the millions of readers who devoured The Girl on the Train know, author Paula Hawkins is very good at playing with your perception — and she does it again in her new novel, Into the Water, which she says is about “sisters who have a very messy history” and two women who turn up dead, weeks apart, at the bottom of a river. “It’s rich and creepy and suspenseful,” says Jaya Miceli, the designer who brought Hawkins’ literary sleight of hand to life on the book jacket. To get “the story’s murkiness and beauty to come through,” she placed the text under a fish tank and photographed it through the water. But then she did something else. Look closely: Do you notice the blurred outline of a woman’s face in the depths? “We didn’t want something you can see immediately,” Miceli says. “But when you see it, you can’t unsee it.” Just like a great Paula Hawkins twist.

Terry Brooks has been spinning his tales of Shannara since 1977, but with this new quadrilogy, he’s bringing the beloved series to a close.

Why did you decide to end the series now? Well, my original plan was to live forever, but I’m discovering that that’s probably not going to happen, and I don’t want to be one of those authors whose series, after going on such a long time, gets written by somebody else at the end.

So you already know what’s going in the final chapter? I’ve got it in my head how I want the series to end — I know the emotional impact I want it to have. I started out with some concepts about the way science and magic work, where they were flip sides of the same coin. Now I’ll show you what happens when the two meet yet again!

These books will be the chronological end of the series. Is that it? You’re done with Shannara? If I want to go back and fill in some gaps that I left along the way or write more stories about a particular character, I can — but I’m not under any obligation.

Take a peek at the opening lines of the new adult novel by Daniel Handler — a.k.a. Lemony Snicket: “Let me put it this way: This is how much I think about sex. Draw a number line, with zero is you never think about sex and ten is, it’s all you think about, and while you are drawing the line, I am thinking about sex.”

Gabourey Sidibe, This Is Just My Face, May 1

Paula Hawkins, Into The Water, May 2

As the millions of readers who devoured The Girl on the Train know, author Paula Hawkins is very good at playing with your perception — and she does it again in her new novel, Into the Water, which she says is about “sisters who have a very messy history” and two women who turn up dead, weeks apart, at the bottom of a river. “It’s rich and creepy and suspenseful,” says Jaya Miceli, the designer who brought Hawkins’ literary sleight of hand to life on the book jacket. To get “the story’s murkiness and beauty to come through,” she placed the text under a fish tank and photographed it through the water. But then she did something else. Look closely: Do you notice the blurred outline of a woman’s face in the depths? “We didn’t want something you can see immediately,” Miceli says. “But when you see it, you can’t unsee it.” Just like a great Paula Hawkins twist.

Sherman Alexie, You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me, June 13

Terry Brooks, The Black Elfstone, June 13

Terry Brooks has been spinning his tales of Shannara since 1977, but with this new quadrilogy, he’s bringing the beloved series to a close.

Why did you decide to end the series now? Well, my original plan was to live forever, but I’m discovering that that’s probably not going to happen, and I don’t want to be one of those authors whose series, after going on such a long time, gets written by somebody else at the end.

So you already know what’s going in the final chapter? I’ve got it in my head how I want the series to end — I know the emotional impact I want it to have. I started out with some concepts about the way science and magic work, where they were flip sides of the same coin. Now I’ll show you what happens when the two meet yet again!

These books will be the chronological end of the series. Is that it? You’re done with Shannara? If I want to go back and fill in some gaps that I left along the way or write more stories about a particular character, I can — but I’m not under any obligation.

Sarah Schmidt, See What I Have Done, August 1

Daniel Handler, All The Dirty Parts, August 29

Take a peek at the opening lines of the new adult novel by Daniel Handler — a.k.a. Lemony Snicket: “Let me put it this way: This is how much I think about sex. Draw a number line, with zero is you never think about sex and ten is, it’s all you think about, and while you are drawing the line, I am thinking about sex.”